“What did she say?”
“Diana . . .” There is a tear in my eye. My God, Leo, what did you do? When I last saw you on that bunk bed, were you stewing over Diana? Were you planning your revenge? Why couldn’t you open up to me? You used to tell me everything, Leo. Why did you pull away from me like that? Or was it me? Was I so caught up in my own stuff—hockey, school, Maura—that I couldn’t see your pain or tell you were on a path of self-destruction?
There are so many people to blame. Am I one of them?
“Diana what?” Augie says.
“I’m leaving here in a few minutes,” I say. “I think it’s better if I tell you in person.”
“It’s that bad.”
Augie isn’t asking. He’s stating.
I don’t reply. I don’t trust my voice.
Then Augie says, “I’ll be at my place. Get here when you can.”
—
When I see Augie, my heart drops.
I’ve been waiting here for the past hour. I’m not inexperienced enough to sit by a window like Beth. I found a spot in the living room corner. From here I can see all entryways. No one can sneak up on me.
I know the truth, but I still hope I’m wrong. I hope that I’ll just waste my time, that I’ll sit in this corner of the farmhouse the rest of the day and through the night, and in the morning I’ll realize that I made a mistake, that I messed up someplace, that I was hopelessly albeit wonderfully wrong.
But I’m not wrong. I’m a good detective. I was schooled by the best.
Augie doesn’t see me yet.
I aim my gun and flick on the light. Augie turns toward me fast. I try to tell him to freeze, but I can’t say it. So I sit there, my gun pointed at him, and hope that he doesn’t reach for his. He sees my face. I know. He knows.
“I got onto your dating site,” I say.
“How?”
“Your email was the user ID.”
He nods, still the mentor. “And the password?”
“Eleven-fourteen-eighty-four,” I say. “Diana’s birthday.”
“Careless of me.”
“I went through your communications. There was only one woman named Yvonne. Yvonne Shifrin. Her phone number was there.”
“You called her?”
“I did. You only went on one date. For lunch. You were sweet, Yvonne Shifrin said, but there was too much sadness in your eyes.”
“Yvonne seemed like a good woman,” he says.
“Still, I called the Sea Pine Resort in Hilton Head. Just to make sure. You never booked a room there.”
“I could have gotten the hotel wrong.”
“You really want to go this way, Augie?”
He shook his head. “Beth told you what they did to Diana?”
“Yes.”
“So you understand.”
“Did you kill my brother, Augie?”
“I got justice for my daughter.”
“Did you kill Leo?”
But Augie isn’t going to make it that easy.
“That night I picked up chicken parm from Nellie’s. Audrey had a PTA meeting, so it was just Diana and me. I could see something was bothering her. Diana was just picking at her food, and she usually scarfed down Nellie’s chicken parm.” He tilts his head, remembering. “So I asked her if something was wrong. She said that she wanted to break up with Leo. Just like that. We had that kind of relationship, Nap.”
He looks at me. I say nothing.
“I asked Diana when she was going to do it. She said she wasn’t sure, but she’d probably wait until after the dance. I . . .” He closed his eyes. “I told her it was up to her, but I didn’t think that was fair to Leo. If she didn’t like him anymore, she shouldn’t string him along. So you see, Nap? Maybe if I had kept my mouth shut, maybe if I had minded my own business . . . I saw your brother when he arrived, all stoned, and me, like an idiot . . . oh God, why did I let her go? Every night I lie in my bed and I ask myself that. Every single night of my miserable, horrible, empty life. I lie there and I replay it and I make all kinds of deals with God about what I’d give, what I’d do, what torments I would suffer, if only we could go back to that night and I could do it over again. God is so cruel sometimes. He blessed me with the most wonderful daughter in the world. I knew that. I knew how fragile it all was. I tried so hard to balance being a strict father with giving my child enough freedom, walking that goddamn tightrope.”
He stands there shaking. I keep the gun on him.
“So what did you do, Augie?”
“It was like I told you before. I went to the base on a disturbance call. Andy Reeves brought me inside. I could tell something big had gone down. Everyone was pale. So first Reeves shows me the body in the back of a truck. It’s some guy they were holding there. A high-profile American, he explains. The guy had gotten past the fences. They couldn’t risk him escaping. He wasn’t supposed to be there, so they were going to get rid of his body, say he ran back to Iraq or something. Reeves told me all this in confidence. But I got it. State secrets. He wanted to make sure he could trust me. I said he could. And then . . . then he said he had something horrible to show me.”
Augie’s face starts to collapse a little at a time.
“So Reeves walks me out into the woods. Two of his men follow us. Two of his men are already there. Up ahead. He hits the flashlight and there, on the ground, naked . . .”
He looks up, and I can see the rage in his eyes.
“. . . and there, next to my daughter’s body, sobbing hysterically and holding her hand, is Leo. I’m staring down, completely numb, while Reeves starts explaining it to me. The prisoner in the truck escaped. They turned on the lights. The guys working the guard towers started shooting into the woods. No one is supposed to be out here. It’s night. Those warning signs are all over the place. The guards kill the escapee, but accidentally, in the heat of battle, I mean, Diana was screaming like crazy and running right at them, stark naked, so one of the guards, a new guy, he panicked and pulled the trigger. It wasn’t his fault, I guess. So there we are, standing there. You’d think I drop to my knees, wouldn’t you? My little girl is dead on the ground, and I want to, I want to just fall onto the ground and hold her and sob for hours. But I don’t.”
Augie looks at me. I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything.
“Leo is still blubbering away. I ask him, calm as I can, what happened. Reeves, he signals for his men to start back to camp. Leo wipes his face with his sleeve. He tells me he and Diana were out in the woods, making out, starting to go further, you know, that kind of thing. Starting to undress. He says when the lights went on, Diana jumped up and panicked. Reeves is standing there listening. I look at him. He shakes his head. He knows what I can see on your brother’s face. Leo is lying. ‘We got video,’ Reeves whispers to me. I help your brother stand. We go inside the base to look at the surveillance tape. First, Reeves shows me a video of your girlfriend. They got her on tape too. Reeves asks me if I know her. I’m too stunned not to answer. I say that’s Maura Wells. Then he nods and shows me another tape. I see Diana. She’s running and screaming. Her eyes are wide like she’s terrified, and she’s ripping her clothes off like she’s on fire. That’s how my little girl spent her last moments alive, Nap. Screaming and terrified. I actually see the bullet hit her chest. She crumples to the ground. And then coming up behind her is Leo. Reeves stops the tape. I turn to Leo. He’s cringing now. I say, ‘How come your clothes are still on?’ He’s crying. He starts making up some story about how much they both loved each other. But see, I know: Diana was going to break up with him. I get really quiet now. Like I understand him now. I’m a cop; he’s a perp. I’m working him. My heart is falling apart—it’s disintegrating in my chest, and I’m just like, ‘It’s okay, Leo,’ just tell me the truth. They’re going to do an autopsy. What drugs are in her system? I keep peppering him. He’s a kid. It doesn’t take long for Leo to crack.”
“What did he tell you?”
“It was just a joke, he kept saying. He didn’t mean to hurt her. Just a stupid prank. To get back at her.”